We Were Young Once
by W-IIV
Summary: They were young once, all of them were. Now they're young in a different part of life. Aka Diana is not a stranger to death. (Tree Fic)


Diana was not a stranger to death, it stole away her parents at such a young age, robbed her of a childhood she desperately wished she had. Now it took Chariot Du Nord away, a person that shouldn't have been taken away so young. It gutted Diana, that someone she grew comfortable calling her a second mum passed away to an incurable disease, one that she didn't have the knowledge and understanding to heal. Time was cruel and cold and it ended Chariot's life swiftly like it ended the stage life of Shiny Chariot.

"I always knew she would be like this," Croix laughed, one hand going through her now grey hair, a habit she never really broken off even after she went past 50. "She was always was a willow type." Diana looked up at Croix, a lost, understanding smile on her lips as Croix's eyes were already glossing over, already in an absent stare losing herself in the many memories that they both walked through together.

Diana looked over a willow tree sapling as fragile as life itself, both in their own world of melancholy and memories, surrounded in the ruins of place Diana never knew resided in the vasts forests of Luna Nova. Somewhere in nearby, residing in the shadows, a giant bear mourned. Like all things, this too must come to an end and Diana broke the silence with a simple question they already knew the answer. "How did you know?"

Croix smiled at her before ruffling her hair as she walked past the old school ruins and the fountain of Polaris with a simple dismissal of a wave. "You just know, even if you didn't she'll show you herself, she always had a way of doing things that were out of the ordinary. I'll be back tomorrow to take care of the tree, if it's anything like herself at that age she'll need it."

* * *

As she was with most things, Croix was right. It was irritating to know that with a logical and non-destructive mindset, Croix was reasonably correct in almost all if not most of her future assumptions. She was right with how Chariot's tree struggled in the very beginning of its growth, she was right with Chariot showing not only Diana but her own child she brought to the world with Akko why Chariot's final deathbed was a willow tree. Croix was even right with what she sort of tree she would have after death.

"It's a yew tree," She murmured, her lazy eyes following the bodies of Akko and her daughter Aurora, playing in between the long thin branches of the willow tree. "It symbolises Immortality and as an omen of death. A fitting thing considering how both my legacies of harm, healing and science will last even if my eventual tree falls."

Diana shifted uncomfortably next to her, ignoring the comment of what witches call 'the second death' but she nodded regardless for the sake of acknowledgement. Her own mind was more focused on the laughter in front of her, eyes gazing softly at Akko chasing their daughter through the willow leaves, playing a childhood game of tag.

It's been years now since Chariot's tree started sprouting and Diana understood why it was a Willow Tree, to begin with. Willow trees shelter people under their long branches, protects them from things like the rain and the sun. It was a hidden place, a land where imagination and stories can come to life, where children can play make-believe as they weave through the many branches as if they're curtains.

"You don't believe me do you, Diana?" Croix asked. Diana turned to her, a small smile on her face as she held Croix's hand, her grip fragile to deal with Croix's aged and calloused hands. Croix has grown more old than any of them ever expected, her hair no longer shows grey but startling white. She spent her time working to find cures for things that have the reputation of being incurable and if she wasn't working she would be underneath the willow tree, talking to Chariot in soft whispers and long lost inside jokes.

"I like to believe that you can't guess things when they're so far away," Diana answered, not fully telling a lie but not fully telling the truth either. It was hard knowing that someone who was both a mentor and a friend could go anytime, it was even harder since after Croix goes there is no one left to guide Diana, at least in a way that can guide her the way her mother would've done. To lose her mother was hard growing up, to lose the second was cruel, to lose the final one now? The thought itself is already difficult enough.

Croix, as if she knew the inner turmoil revolving in Diana's mind, gave Diana a gentle smile and kissed her on the forehead. "Diana," she whispered wiping the tears that threatened to fall on Diana's face from the corner of her eyes. "Death is never the end, even as trees we'll always be here so you're not losing anyone, not anymore," Croix leaned in, wrapping her arms around Diana's back as she gently patted her back, letting what tears she's couldn't save soak her shirt.

When her death came, they buried Croix's ashes next to Chariot's and as she predicted, a Yew sapling sprouted within the next couple of months. People mourned for her, never understanding why a brilliant witch like her died so young. She was barely over the age of 100, a short life when you consider the growing mortality witches have. Diana knew why, she saw it every time Croix was with Chariot's tree. She died of a broken heart.

* * *

To the surprise of everyone, the infamous wild flame that was Amanda O'Neill left them first. Diana remembered hearing about it the news, she was at home with her own ageing wife, entertaining themselves with a cartoon Akko found when they had a phone call. On the other side was a near- breakdown sob from Hannah. "Go to Channel 5." It was all she could muster before she cut the conversation, not even letting Diana ask what was wrong.

Even to this day, Diana could still visibly remember the heading, the broken, barely composed comment from the news anchor and the way the world just shifted just a bit, like everything was moved two inches to the left.

_Former Broom Racing Champion, Senior Teacher at Luna Nova and Co-founder of Braunschbank-Albrechtsberger Industries, Amanda O'Neill died due to building collapse. She just reached her 160s._

Her death whilst tragic was a heroic one. On a school trip, with the assurance that the building was secure for magical use, a lie that Diana will forever curse, a spell, affected by the terrain went wrong. Amanda quickly got everyone evacuated from the building par from one team and before anyone could stop her due to the overwhelming level of danger, she rushed in to save them. And save them she did, just at the price of her own life.

Though despite all the grief and misery within those dark periods, Diana would never stop to find one part of her will amusing, even if it was amusing in a gallow humour way. Amanda's tree shall grow in the Luna Nova Courtyard. A laughable thing when she remembered how much Amanda outwardly despised Luna Nova and the teachers in her teenage youth and how much she complained about the students, the buildings and the responsibilities of a teacher whenever they used to meet up in their short burst of free time.

Though now she could understand why. Even if it took her a moment of rest under Amanda's growing Oak Tree to realise why her resting place was Luna Nova. Life was busy. It was always too busy and for students who were still stuck in the mind frame that they must be constantly successful in their studies and hobbies to succeed in life and accomplish something, life was the busiest of all.

Sitting under the branches, finally enjoying the present moment and to just _breathe_ without anxiety stressing how important it was to impact the students in the upcoming guest lecture she was about to do, Diana remembered how much Amanda lazed about. About how she never cared about the past. About how she never questioned the future. She just- lived in the moment.

Diana then remembered how many times Amanda slept in or near a tree in the warmer seasons, always preferring an oak tree for its stability and shade coverage. She then pictured the generations of children, some of them too stressed to relax voluntarily unless pulled away by friends, resting maybe napping underneath Amanda's tree. Kids... just…. being kids…

The realisation was enough to bring Diana to tears. Even if it's in her own head, she could imagine Amanda sighing in fake annoyance. She could _hear_ her complain that she was overthinking things again before eventually caving and admitting the subtlety hidden but genuine care and love she had for people she taught, for the people she knew and Luna Nova itself.

* * *

Akko, her most beloved, the forever owner of her own heart, was the next person to go.

Akko died in Japan, she insisted on it when the differences between appearances couldn't be ignored, when Akko's hair was now nestled with the beauty of white whilst Diana's just began sporting the rare grey. Akko wanted to leave in the place where it all started. Where they could've first met in fate was kinder.

Diana dropped everything and lived with Akko in Japan. Diana learnt the language and learnt the culture. She learnt as much as she could about Akko again, about her non-magical family and the history she forgot to share. She's a great-grand aunt now, not surprising when Akko herself defeated doctor's expectations and lived to the early 200s, making her have another thing to her legacy, being world's oldest non-magical human to ever live.

Diana stayed by her side, even when Akko's memory started to fail, even when words became muffled and broken in her ears. Diana stayed by her through everything. Even with her final breath where she broke down crying when Akko's hand fell limp. Whispering the same words she repeated a million times ever since they got together: I love you. Again and again, so that the newly formed ghost could hear it, always in different languages before her broken voice forced her to a sob it out in a heartbreak mixture of Japanese and English.

It took Diana 10 years to leave Japan, to move on enough of her grief to carry on her duties. She stayed till Akko's tree was in full bloom, nurturing her sapling in the way she saw Croix nurtured Chariot's. With every process, Diana spoke to Akko. She spoke to her in all different languages, fish, English, fae and more. Most of the time, Diana spoke to her in Japanese, just so that she could never forget the smile on Akko's face when she first heard Diana speak it.

Her ashes buried in a place of Sanctuary built for her and her legacy. Not to anyone's surprise, the tree was a Sakura. It fitted Akko to a tee, they were beautiful, iconic in the world around them yet sadly short-lived. It made Diana appreciate spring even more now, every year when she visited Akko's tree, it gave her more reason to live. When the breeze swept around her hair, petals dancing around her body like a brush of a hug as if the world still hasn't forgotten her, of what she did or how she acted. Or maybe it did outside of Diana's perspective, Diana would never know, she could never forget her, even if the world slowly reduced to her a sentence of history.

* * *

It took the world a couple of more decades to claim it's next victim within Diana's circle. This time she found out through the radio, sipping some herbal tea in her large empty place of a house. The radio she once used to struggle with as a youth was something considered "antique" with how fast technology has grown in the last two centuries, the world was able to go to the stars now. Not that Diana has ever gone or will ever go, her trip to space was a one-time event with her most beloved, to go beyond that single number without Akko right beside her was a slap of disrespect to her memory.

So here Diana was, alone once more in a slowly dwindling planet of the human population, sitting in a room surrounded by laughing ghosts. Or of assumptions of them. Chariot would be in the background, calming down an either fascinated or enraged Croix who pointed out all of the new features and exclaim how she would've killed to get these when she was alive. Amanda would be laughing at how nothing changed in two centuries, that Diana still old fashioned and stuck with what she knew. And Akko? Akko would try and persuade her to go to space.

Diana would normally listen to her wife, but not like this, not when it was just her own imagination still healing her losses. Not when she turned up the radio dials to drown out her own grief, unaware of the announcement that was coming, not when everything stilled but her own cup. Where with it's shattering made way for a new ghostly assumption in Diana's head.

Constanze.

Constanze Amalie von Braunschbank-Albrechtsberger.

It was a lab test gone wrong apparently, a failed solution to connect Earth's ley lines to the outer leylines, the magic that exists within the void of space. Constanze was the only one small and experienced enough to turn off the machine when the walls started to be sucked in the vacuum and collapsed.

When she found out how and why Constanze died Diana laughed, mourned and didn't look up at the stars for nearly six months. There was too much of a backdraft of emotions, with every positive memory two more negative conversations with herself and her ghosts took its place. It's a what if there, an I miss you here, a you would've loved the future now and everywhere. Constanze was the only ghost in her head that doesn't speak, but she was still there with a sigh that both said sorry and goodbye.

A sigh that was echoed within the tallest heights of Germany's mountains where Constanze's tree bloomed. It was a Guelder Rose. Diana didn't know how Constanze managed to survive in a place that was not built for such a woodland tree but at least she knew why. It mirrored Constanze's strive and indifference in a world that wasn't ready for her, the difficulties of being mute and trying to innovate for a society that didn't want things to change. Or maybe, Constanze just wanted to know what it was like to be tall.

* * *

One would think that Diana, a person who has known death since she was a child, should be ready for death. That she would be used to it. That she would be prepared this time when death once again knocked on her lonely door. But no. She wasn't ready, she wasn't prepared and it wasn't easy. These things were never easy and it's never easy because saying goodbye is the hardest thing about death and Diana never properly learnt how to say goodbye.

Maybe she would learn this time, Lotte was always someone who said goodbyes.

She died of old age, surrounded by a sea of fae and a broken but alive circle of old friends. See the faes loved her, perhaps even more than her friends did, than her wives did. She was in a polymaroy with Barbara and Hannah, with Barbara in the middle receiving both affections at first, decades after Amanda's death before it evolved to a point where her home was both with Hannah and Barbara. Lotte didn't mind it, in fact, she was glad that her lovers would have still had someone after her passing.

"It's comforting," she confessed when Diana visited her ailing friend, days before her last breath. "That they won't be alone when I'm gone." Her smile, though weak and small was large at heart and Diana couldn't help but mirror it as she grasped Lotte's hand, trying so hard not to think too hard about the wrinkles on the skin and how long it would be until Diana would reach that point in her seemingly immortal life. "But still, take care of them please Diana?"

Diana laughed, her eyes downcast. She feared seeing death's reflection in Lotte's eyes. "I'm sure they would be enough to look after each other Lotte,"

"I know," Lotte admitted causing Diana to look up. She saw life and memories and the words "I'll miss you" in Lotte's owl-shaped glasses. "But who would look after you?"

Lotte was buried in the middle of the forest in Finland, in a clearing that was quickly made by the fae folk. Though it was on the common ground and that Lotte's tree was the average Silver birch. It was created magical through the offerings surrounding it, of the crowds of people who chip in and help look after it. Lotte touched the hearts of many during her life, helping those she could with as little as a thank you. Now it appeared that they help her in return, ensuring that the land around her tree though public remains protected.

Diana didn't learn how to say goodbye this time, but she knew what to do now after this encounter with death. And that was enough.

* * *

Diana followed Lotte's request and stayed with her old friends after her passing for many decades. She made sure they were looked after, subtly making sure they lived longer than they should've. (She wasn't ready to let them go yet). They made sure that when she grieved she wasn't alone and let it consume her. It was the similar dynamic of when they were in Luna Nova centuries ago.

And for once, thinking about those days, vivid in her mind like they were leaving school yesterday didn't hurt. They were fond memories, spoken with a soft tongue to all the children she met in her travels. After Lotte's death, Diana found her will and courage again to go out and help others. These practices weren't far away from her home as she started to ease herself but she started to regain a sense of purpose that she buried away when she lost herself with Akko's death and broke down during Constanze.

The ghostly assumptions still talk in her head, they make comments every now and then of what Diana would think they would say. Chariot and Croix have been a bit more muffled in her head so Diana made an effort to remember them more so that she won't forget them when the world nearly did. Nearly, the history of magic and how it came back was a common topic within schools and many times Diana was invited to talk about it. It was amusing to hear children, now taken magic and space travel for granted, be dumbfounded by how the world worked back then, and how to be a witch was to be a mockery of society.

Diana at first dreaded these talks, that it would hurt too much to talk about the past and how she would miss her friends who went ahead. How she would crave to talk to be in Akko's warm embrace once more. Now, however, Diana answered every call and visited every school. In their eyes, she could see the past, of her friends of when they were all a bit curious, all a bit wild and every bit young.

She could see the Chariot's of the future, the kind helpful souls and those who wanted to make everyone around them smile. She could see the Croix's, the bitter kids who worked hard to spite those who tried to bring them down, the ambitious overachievers who want to make the world better. The reckless law ignoring Amanda's who just want to live life in the moment, the people who secretly cared for their friends but had a hard time showing it. She could see the Lotte's who tried to help her friends any way she can, the quiet people who explode with a feverish passion when her special interest gets involved.

She could see the Akko's of the future, the determined optimistic believers. The people who send their friends into wild adventures and ignores all the rules to help those she loves.

She could see the Hannah in those kids, the kids who try their best to get better after they realised how harmful they were to other people, the kids who stick with their friends no matter the consequences. She could see the Barbara in them, the kids who are uncertain whether their interest would be made fun of and hide it, the children who love their friends no matter how long they have been separated.

Diana saw her best friends in the curious youth and whenever she pointed it out to the ghost assumptions in her head, they naturally agree.

Hannah and Barbara's deaths were something every lover wished. Which was that they never spent a day apart, that they died together in each other's arms. There are many times, many many times that Diana wished she died the same day Akko died (though sometimes she theorised that she did deep inside) or that Akko had the same mortal life Diana did. Akko was always full of miracles when they first met. Diana wished she didn't nowadays. Maybe if Akko didn't use up her miracles, she would be with Diana right now, holding Diana in her arms as she cried the deaths of her two closest friends, of the people she first called outside of blood family.

Their trees were cherry trees, wild and native to the England soils. They were planted in Hannah's family estate, in the middle of the lake she owned where there was a patch of land in the centre. Though they were cherry trees, they weren't the same tree, they were similar enough where people would mistake the two but they were still, very much different. Barbara was a bird cherry tree, her berries were black like her raven hair. Hannah's was a wild cherry tree, the berries red as her auburn hair.

There's a part of Diana that's happy that they went like this. They didn't need to go through what Diana been through, they already lost one lover (two in Hannah's case), Diana didn't know if they could handle one more. She was happy that she didn't need to mourn for each one separately after a prolonged amount of time. That she could deal with the deaths all in one go and bury, nurture their trees together and make sure they are together just like they were when they were alive.

But there's a part of her that hate Hannah and Barbara for doing this to her, for both of them dying at the same time. She won't diminish her grief and her heartbreak by denying the torrid of drunk curses and slurred shouts she made in the middle of the night, wine spilling from her glass as waves upon waves of sobs wracked her body. Diana was alone once again and she hated them for that. Most importantly, she hated the fact that in their final moments she didn't have the chance to say goodbye.

* * *

It has been decades, or maybe a century since Hannah and Barbara's deaths. Diana worked herself being a witch for the people like the now ancient witches of the past, how her mother acted before her own death. Her name was renowned across the world, her name famed as a miracle worker, of a person who would try their best to work through all the ailments.

She has seen her children died, her grandchildren die and she buried each one of her descendants if she could. She lost count of how many greats are between her and the latest descendent but she still loved them all the same. Despite the many encounters with death, Diana held on, still never forgetting those who passed, still focused on retelling their stories again and again to a new generation.

She stayed in the Luna Nova grounds, acting as a teacher every now and again, her room near Jasminka, still acting as headmaster for many many centuries. It was a comfort seeing a similar youth in Jasminka's body that Diana saw in her own mirrored reflection, that demon rooted in Jasminka's soul gave Jasminka enough energy to live beyond her time. In the days where they reminisce about the past together, Diana with her usual tea and Jasminka, hand still down a packet of crisps, it was easy to forget that everyone else died. It was easier to imagine that they were doing some hidden scheming behind Diana's back like they always did when they studied in Luna Nova centuries ago.

Though the whispers of Sucy's voice, the newest addition to Diana's conversations in her head mocked her. She would remind Diana that she was stuck in the past again and Diana would blink once to return to the present, twice to stop the tears and sighed as a bittersweet smile formed on her face.

No one really knew when Sucy passed on, she was never one to have lingering attachments and sappy goodbyes, especially all those she was attached to like her team passed on before her. All Diana knew was that one day her messages stopped being responded after Hannah and Barbara's funeral and that a decade after being ghosted she was called to go to the Philippines to deal with an evil tree.

Diana's anger when she found out whose tree she was called to deal with was an unrivalled fury, the stories exclaimed that it was felt throughout the entire cosmo. It was a gross exaggeration but it was true in its core. Diana was furious, anger coursing through her veins as she screamed at Sucy's Balete Tree and her long looming branches that emitted despair.

She raged on days and nights, astonishing the locals on how she managed to stay alive with all the poison in the air. (It was only later after Diana calmed down, did they realise who the tree was and that, even after death, Sucy wouldn't harm those she called her friends). Diana through the hoarse screaming mourned for Sucy there. She wasn't always the greatest person but Diana would still miss her.

However, she didn't miss her enough for the frequent nightmares she appeared in that haunted Diana in her sleep.

"_Why are you still here," Diana sighed as she looked towards the vast empty abyss, coloured white in the afterlife. _

_Sucy, stuck in her second death shrugged with the branches. "You wanted me to be here." _

_The straightforwardness of her reply made Diana bristle. "If I wanted someone who died to be in my dreams I would want Akko, you and I both know this, Sucy." _

"_You want closure for my death." _

"_I don't care anymore about your death." Diana snarled, her voice becoming harsher in a snap. "I just want you gone." _

"_Then let me go Diana." Sucy's smile turned pitiful as Diana's body froze. "Let all of us go." _

Those conversations echoed many times after Sucy's death, haunting Diana in the sleep and when she was awake, only changing minor things each time. The only thing that was consistent was the demand Sucy made, the last word in every conversation. "_Let us go." _

Diana ignored what she could most days, she still clung on to the ghosts, firm in the belief that she would be the only one who would tell their stories. That was until Jasminka opened the New Nein Witches museum, a grand non-profit building that talked about life before the magic revival, that held stories of the witches and humanised them for the public who placed them on top of shrines and mental pedestals. Jasminka made sure every stone was turned, that entire building was constantly full of life and magic.

When Diana asked Jasminka why she did it, in the rare moment of peace during the grand opening day, Jasminka looked at her and Diana saw ghosts within Jasminka's eyes, almost fading in the ceiling light. She placed her hand on Diana's shoulder and smiled. "So that both of us could move on."

Diana said goodbye to her ghosts that night, and she made a special effort to hug and thank Sucy's for giving her the courage to do so.

* * *

It was nearly half a millennium after Chariot's death, back when the slow chain of death and mourning began. It was only Diana and Jasminka now, still together as friends around the age 480s (The exact number never really mattered now and it was easier to celebrate birthdays at every 10-year interval). Jasminka finally gave up her job as Luna Nova's headmaster to work and improve on her museum whilst Diana still moved around, helping those she could before retreating to her own house near the museum where she would talk with Jasminka over tea and food.

That was when everything started. That was when Diana realised that one day in the near future opposed to the 800s where she predicted she would live up to, she was going to die.

"I want you to kill me," Jasminka said with a calm voice like it was a comment on the weather. She drank her tea like the comment meant nothing.

Diana's eyes went wide and she narrowly avoided a spit take or to choke on her tea as she placed her cup back on the table. "Excuse me?" She must've misheard her, Diana reasoned to herself in her head, there was no way Jasminka would say that, at least not in a calm expression like that.

Jasminka put her cup down, looked Diana in the eye and repeated the sentence again. "I want you to kill me, Diana."

Diana had no words and when words came to her after what seemed a decade of silence, one only came. "Why?"

"Because if you don't kill me, I don't think I will ever die."

Diana stared at her flabbergasted, "How? What?"

Jasminka sighed and she ate a biscuit from the tray. "The demon I ate when I was a child is still hungry and I don't think it would let me die if I dealt with it myself, it's too powerful for me. Your powers are starting to diminish Diana and this might be my last chance to move on if you help me. You're the most powerful healer the world has ever seen, I don't know how long will I wait till another one comes again."

Diana looked at her carefully and took a deep breath, voice shuddering a bit from the intensity of the request. "What happens when I get rid of the demon?" her voice grew in pitch from fear. "How long would you have left?"

Jasminka leaned forward, grasped Diana's hand and squeezed in support. "I don't know Diana, and I won't force you to do it. I just don't want to be alone after you go."

Diana took a deep breath and nodded. "I'll help, it may take me decades but I'll do it." She knew what it was like to be alone, she was familiar with loneliness. She could handle it again if Jasminka left. She didn't want Jasminka to know what being truly alone felt like, it was the least she could do for her oldest friend.

After the talk, Diana spent years researching, experimenting, trying to figure out a way to get rid of the demon within Jasminka. She poured her heart and soul into helping Jasminka, even going against her own boundaries and worked overnight at some points, hurting her own health. Jasminka helped her the best she could, making sure she ate, reminding her to take breaks and giving her information regarding the demon.

After two decades, around their ages of 490s, Diana successfully destroyed the demon within Jasminka, freeing her from the fiendish chains and to her greatest relief, Jasminka didn't die the moment it was destroyed. Her body still had its strength before the demon was taken away but that strength was slowly chipped away, day by day.

Diana stayed by her side every single day until the very last breath, on the day where Jasminka turned 500. The entire world celebrated how one of the nine witches reached half a millennium and there was festivals of food and cheering everywhere. Everywhere except a lone house in the Russian countryside, where two witches held each other's hands. Their hands were frail with age, but whilst one had a tight grip, the other could barely have the energy to curl their fingers.

"I'm going to miss you Jasminka," Diana smiled, tears building in the corner of her eyes. "Thank you for everything."

Jasminka laughed, her voice frail and light with exhaustion. Her body rose and fell with heavy breaths. "You finally learnt how to say goodbye, I'm proud of you."

"I wouldn't be able to without your help," Diana grinned, smile watery as it wavered, tears started to roll silently down her cheeks. "Goodbye Jasminka."

Jasminka pushed her strength to give Diana one final smile. "I'll tell Akko I said hi," she whispered, voice seeping into the last exhale as her eyes closed and her hand fell limp. Diana mourned her final friend's death but as she did, the smile on her face didn't diminish. It held on, smiling through the tears, knowing full well that the life Jasminka lived in was a cherished one and that she died smiling and fulfilled.

Her tree was buried in the middle of the Museum, underneath the glass ceiling in the centre. It was a pine tree and like the miracle it took for Jasminka to survive the time she ate a demon to getting rid of the said demon and still living, the Pine Tree grew fruit. Fruit that only grew in specific climates, fruit that grew in different worlds that humans inhabited. Every time Diana saw it when she visited, she smiled. She smiled through the bittersweet tears, happy that Jasminka didn't have the demon with her, that when it was her own turn to die, Jasminka would be on the other side with some biscuits and tea.

* * *

Diana was not a stranger to death, it stole away her parents at such a young age, robbed her of a childhood she desperately wished she had. It stole away loved ones that were too young to die, it stole her most precious Akko, the only person Diana has ever truly loved in her over 500 years worth of living.

Diana was not a stranger to death, but doesn't mean she was ready to die.

Diana didn't want to leave, even now in the similar position of her mother, a low constitution born from overworking herself. She was around 515, (she started to count single digits again after the first wave of fatigue hit her system) and though she knew it was soon her time, she didn't want to leave just yet.

She had plans to do, she had people to spend a couple more minutes with if she could but soon enough, she was eventually bound to a bed. Thanks to modern day society it didn't hinder her too much but the cost of casting spells was too much for her body to bear. She spent her last few years travelling on a wheelchair, hair now fully grey and white, skin wrinkled and sagging.

She travelled mostly on her own, escaping her own sitters to enjoy the outdoors and the freedom and the people. One would think it would be hard to wheel up a mountain or go through a dirty forest path, but the world made way for Diana as if it knew what she has done. Diana suspected the local fae was helping her, as a final thank you for everything she has done despite her initial disagreements with them in her Luna Nova years.

Eventually, all good things must end.

Diana, the last of the nine witches, the living myth and legend within the witch community rolled through the England countryside with nothing but a bag and the faes to guide her. Her will was already settled, the loose ends she had were all know knotted with satisfaction. It was her time.

She meandered through the forests and meadow, crossed streams and empty country roads, spending her last moments in quiet solitude. On a wheelchair alone, this act seemed near impossible but like before, the world always found a way to let her wander. She watched the world moved on slowly as her sands in her hourglass slowed to the inevitable trickle until she paused in a large meadow in the middle of the night. It was a place full of nothingness, home to nothing but wildflowers and the inky constellations above.

It was a clearing of no importance, an isolated land where the nearest person was the rare car travelling along a country road up north but somehow, deep within Diana's heart. This was the place. This was where her tree would be. And to make that point, Diana found the courage to leave her chair and stumble across the grass to lie down. Not surprisingly, the comfort was just as if she was sleeping on her bed back at home.

Maybe if she found this place ages ago, before her body was confined and her magic grew tiresome, Diana would run a small test to check and understand why this place spoke to her. But now, Diana was going to just close her eyes.

She…..

was just so….

_Tired._

.

.

.

.

.

That night, the moon turned blue and the stars mourned the loss of a pure soul. Colours of the rainbow, the aurora light danced across the white spotted nightscape. Overnight, where one living legend died, a new one began.

This legend spoke of a small forest appearing overnight in the middle of the English Countryside, of a land that only those of gentle and pure of mind could enter or even be near. Where deep within the forest is an ash tree. It was bigger than the average tree but what was the amazing bit about it was that its roots were endless and spread deep into the soil. It spread far and wide but it never stole other tree's nutrients but magically amplified it.

Humanity, amazing in their uncanny coincidences, named the mysterious forest the Cavendish Forest, under the mystical witch that disappeared the day before the tree forest appeared. The tree itself was known as The Ethereal Tree and was seen as the complete opposite to the Wagandea Tree. If Wagandea has a canopy no witch can either reach, the Ethereal will have roots that have no ends.

* * *

**A/N**

**...Yeahh I just did that lmaoo**

**There was supposed to be an epilogue but it got too long so it will be it's on chapter lmao. (that's where the comfort for all these angst and hurt is for btw). Probably gonna publish it next week, I'm currently leaving the country to avoid all the reader pitchforks for killing everyone XD (no seriously on holiday cause lord knows I need a break lmao) ****ALSO SHOUT OUT TO MY FRIEND AND FELLOW ANGST WRITER TOMATO WHO WALKED WITH ME DURING THIS EMOTIONAL FEST OF WRITING!**


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